Body found off coast ID'd as Newport-Ensenada racer

May 8, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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This Friday, April 27 photo shows the Aegean with crew members at the start of a 125-mile Newport Beach to Ensenada yacht race. The 37-foot Aegean, carrying a crew of four, was reported missing Saturday, April 28. Three crew members were found dead and one was missing. AP PHOTO

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John Busch, 52, left, has been racing sailboats since age 15. Busch and his father-in-law Bob Lang agree that things can go bad quickly racing in the open seas. The Long Beach residents were aboard the 63-foot Medicine Man, pictured in Long Beach, Calif., last week, which won first in its class and first overall in the the Newport Beach to Ensenada race. An accident claimed the lives of four men aboard the 37-foot Aegean, which was found in pieces April 28. CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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In this image taken from U.S. Coast Guard video, a rescuer retrieves a piece of debris from the ocean off the Baja California, Mexico coast near Ensenada Sunday, April 29, 2012. The 37-foot racing sailboat Aegean, carrying a crew of four, was reported missing Saturday, April 28, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The yacht appeared to have collided at night with a much larger vessel, leaving three crew members dead and one missing. AP PHOTO/USCG PETTY OFFICER THIRD CLASS SETH JOHNSON

This Friday, April 27 photo shows the Aegean with crew members at the start of a 125-mile Newport Beach to Ensenada yacht race. The 37-foot Aegean, carrying a crew of four, was reported missing Saturday, April 28. Three crew members were found dead and one was missing.AP PHOTO

Theo Mavromatis, 49, of Redondo Beach had been missing since the bodies of William Reed Johnson Jr., 57, of Torrance, Kevin Rudolph, 53, of Manhattan Beach, and Joseph Lester Stewart, 64, of Bradenton, Fla., were found in a debris field near the islands off Baja California during the annual Newport Beach to Ensenada race.

Mavromatis died of multiple blunt-force injuries, a spokesman for the San Diego County Medical Examiner said Tuesday morning. He and the crew of the 37-foot Aegean all were experienced sailors who had participated before in the annual Newport Ocean Sailing Association's yacht race, which until this year had never seen a fatality in its 65-year history.

"This is a tragic event, and on behalf of the Coast Guard, our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the families and friends of the crew members of the Aegean," Petty Officer 1st Class Allyson Conroy of the U.S. Coast Guard in San Diego said.

The Aegean disappeared from an online tracking system around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, April 28, with the boat last transmitting a signal from the tip of North Coronado Island. This has led to speculation that the Aegean smashed into the island, whose features at the northern tip include a sheer cliff and several jagged rocks just below the water's surface, according to veteran sailors.

The Coast Guard is looking into that possibility and also into whether the Aegean collided with a large tanker or military ship as it sailed through shipping lanes used by vessels hundreds of times its size.

Conroy said the investigation is considering all evidence and that it could be weeks before a final report is issued.

At around 2:40 p.m. Sunday, a fishing boat found the body in the vicinity of where the wreckage of the Aegean and the three bodies were located April 28.

"The U.S. Coast Guard responded to the location and upon arrival pulled the decedent from the water," the San Diego County Medical Examiner said in a news release. "His death was confirmed without medical intervention."

Rudolph died of blunt-force trauma to the head and neck, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner. Stewart died of blunt-force head injuries, and Johnson succumbed to multiple blunt-force injuries, the medical examiner said.

It's unclear how Mavromatis' body could have gone undetected in the area of the debris field for more than a week before being discovered.

Chuck Brewer, 77, a veteran Newport Beach sailboat racer, said a body could go missing for days in the high seas before turning up.

"It could have been caught underneath the debris of the boat, or have been tangled around something," Brewer said. "There's a lot of ocean out there."

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